My Dharma or reason for being is devilishly simple: to maximise pleasure and to shuffle off this mortal coil before the nursing home beckons.
Fatally, at least for those with a yen for acronyms and self-hatred, my ultimate goal corrupts their hallowed SMART strictures. It is not quite specific. It is measurable. It is attainable. It is relevant. It is not time-based. I’m not resolved to stubbing out the fags, abandoning the booze, or chasing around Soho the doomed affections of neurotic artists. I refuse to wake at 5 a.m., invest in crypto, or bore my tastebuds with rainbow carrots.
I’ll take my cue from the great novelist, ardent womaniser, and prodigious piss artist, Kingsley Amis: “No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home in Weston-Super-Mare.”
In an age which toggles between grind-culture puritanism and brain-rot hedonism, we must chart a more amenable path. So, the pursuit of pleasure, it is. I resolve to pursue pleasure deliberately, intelligently, doggedly, ethically and without apology—not to escape but to evolve.
Pleasure gets a bad name. What, with all our competing isms and illities. Those journeys of immiseration and self-loathing. One cannot move for ice baths and magnesium supplements and alcohol-free and protein-rich and wellness retreats and fucking motivational podcasts. Antisocial tech billionaires inject the blood of teenagers in a demented bid to live forever. It is a new secular puritanism. These longevity bros trade the profound depth of life for its mere length. They are terrified of death, yet terrified to actually live. It must stop.
By 2027, demographers believe Londoners will never be more than six feet away from a podcast host. Perish the thought.
Online, we wade through the treacle of wellness fads, each as vagrant as the one before it. Last week’s gospel is this week’s heresy. And yet, none—none—of this schlock contributes one isotope to collective human happiness. By happiness, I don’t mean that lobotomised state peddled by the noisome spawn of Edward Bernays. I mean contentment—chemically induced or otherwise.
“Aren’t you a little old for this?” the modern puritans ask. “Your friends have mortgages and children. Hedonism is the occupation of youth.”
But this is not hedonism. Our culture has had quite enough of hedonism. Hedonism is the senseless, numbing pursuit of consumption for consumption’s sake. It rots the social fabric. I am proposing a revival of its mature, refined cousin: Epicureanism. Oft confused with hedonism—the senseless pursuit of pleasure—epicures seek simple pleasures in moderation. The key is to achieve eudaimonia—an absence of pain.
If hedonism frays the social fabric, its mature, refined cousin stitches it back together. Epicureanism, properly understood, is not indulgence but discrimination. It asks a simple question: What is actually worth enjoying? Unlike the hedonist, the epicure seeks simple pleasures in moderation.
The modern world has inverted this wisdom. We are offered either joyless optimization—where a glass of red is treated like a vial of uranium—or its grotesque opposite: self-destruction marketed as empowerment. Either we flog ourselves into biohacking insanity or numb ourselves into oblivion on TikTok. Both paths lead to the same hell: a life lived only in retrospect.
The Epicurean swipes that colourless nonsense off the table and plonks down a nice fat glass of Cabalié. Wine isn’t poison, as claimed by the longevity bros on their podcasts. It is a social technology, perfected over millennia. The same is true of good food, music, sex, conversation, and the rest. These gifts don’t need optimising. Thank you, very much.
This is not decadence, but maintenance. Civilisation does not survive on spreadsheets alone. It survives because, at the end of the working day, someone opens a bottle, lights a drunk cigarette, confides with a good friend, tells the truth, and remembers why life is worth the bother.
The modern godfather of this philosophy died a few years back. Take one look at Jim Harrison and you’ll see he lived on his terms. The great writer and epicure said the key to earthly bliss was to drink a bottle of red wine in around 45 minutes.
On Friday evenings, I often do just that. After work, I break open a bottle of red. Perhaps a too eager student, my record stands at 27 minutes.
Of course, this being an Epicurean ritual, I adhere to self-imposed rules: No rushing, no downing, no necking, no quaffing, and certainly no liking one’s ex-girlfriend’s Instagram pics. The aim was not to get drunk but to arrive somewhere pleasantly altered.
Last week’s session was a resounding success. I complied with each of the rules, but the last one. Sure, the podcast bros would deplore such a violent act meted upon one’s liver. But what would they know about living?
Last night I proved the Riemann Hypothesis over a pleasant Margaret River cabernet. The problem proved intractable at first, but you'd be amazed how easy it became by the fourth glass. Sadly, I wasn't taking notes.
My mate Louise and I have been known to do two bottles of prosecco (our booze of choice) in under two hours, while at the same time resolving the UK debt crisis, the immigration problem, unemployment and a solution to world peace ✌️ 🤣🤣🤣 Usually accompanied by posh crisps (Tyrrells roasted roots, there is nothing finer 🤣) followed by margarita pizza (why gild the lily?) and to finish, Biscoff cheesecake. 😂 Yup, simple pleasures.....Hubs is usually in the background monitoring the oven, chipping in and snaffling crisps. We run this once a month. We've had a longer break than usual due to both our holidays, but our little club of two convenes next Wednesday and I can't wait 🤣